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The Twilight Saga
Bella Swan has always been a bit of an introvert. This is only exacerbated by her moving to Forks, Washington, halfway through high school. She moves in with her father, the chief of police, and is given a run-down truck. The rest, she's got to figure out on her own. On the first day, a mysterious student catches her eye: Edward Cullen. Part of the all-around beautiful and mysterious Cullen family, they both begin on a dangerous adventure together, and she makes it her goal to figure him out, and find out his secret, for it's a dark one. Author: Stephanie Meyer Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2005 Reviews Liesl Schillinger- NY Times Ask any high school girl: boys can be a pain. Fall for one who seems appealing, and he turns out to be a monster. One moment he acts like you don’t exist, the next, he drives you crazy by playing it cool — while his brothers circle you with hungry eyes. If you take a break to cut the tension, and hang out “just friends”-style with a younger guy who’s puppy-dogging you, what happens? Wouldn’t you know, he turns out to be a nightmare too. It’s frustrating, but it’s a typical human predicament. Unless, that is, you happen to be Bella Swan — the relentles sly intense heroine of Stephenie Meyer’s “Eclipse” — in which case your boyfriend is a vampire and your besotted best friend is a werewolf, prone to passive-aggressive outbursts like: “Well, I’m so sorry that I can’t be the right kind of monster for you, Bella. I guess I’m just not as great as a bloodsucker, am I?” How can Bella pass her calculus final with this unearthly love triangle preying on her mind? For nearly 1,800 pages, in three glossy black volumes splashed with crimson on their covers — “Twilight,” “New Moon” and now “Eclipse,” which has an announced first printing of a million copies — Meyer, the popular young-adult author, has teased her readers with the romantic confusion of a normal (well ... human, at any rate) girl who’s being pursued by a wolf-teen named Jacob Black and is in love with a ravishing American Nosferatu named Edward Cullen. Bella meets Edward on her first day as a junior transfer student to Forks High School, in a remote cloud-covered corner of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Spotting him in the cafeteria, she’s transfixed by his “devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful” face, marble-smooth skin, bronze hair and stormy eyes. Jake, no slouch, is tall and dark-eyed with russet-colored skin and “glossy black hair,” but how can he compete — especially when Edward’s a junior and he’s only a freshman? Talk about unfair. Sitting next to Bella in bio class, Edward glares at her with fury. Bewitched, bothered and already hooked, she doesn’t know that the scent of her blood intoxicates Edward to the point of perdition. It’s all he can do not to make a meal of her, but he wants Bella for more than a one-night snack. Part of a clan of “good” vampires who are sworn to a strict homo-sapiens-free regimen, Edward hungers for Bella’s eternal companionship. Can he succumb to his passion and stick to his diet? “He looks at you like ... like you’re something to eat,” a jealous junior named Mike says to Bella early on. But by then, Bella’s made her choice — after you’ve dated a vampire, mortal boys seem so immature. Meyer’s trilogy seethes with the archetypal tumult of star-crossed passions, in which the supernatural element serves as heady spice. As Bella and her vampire swain channel Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Cathy, their audience falls under the spell of a love that is not only undying, but undead. Meyer writes with a PG-13 sensibility: in the earlier books, she skirted clinches that would put an unmarried girl afoul of the censors. Besides, Bella was too busy figuring out her suitors’ species to focus on miscegenation. But as “Eclipse” begins, both Edward’s and Jake’s exotic lineages have been exposed, and the heat on their rivalrous courtship has been cranked up to “broil.” As Bella sizzles with longing, agonizing over the Right Monster, Edward distracts her with the news that a horde of “bad” vampires, seeking to avenge the death of one of their own, may be hustling toward Forks, fangs drawn. This possibility does not endear her to the local werewolf community. Internecine warfare looms, but who could care, when what you really want to know is: Will Bella and Edward get married after they graduate from high school — given that once their vampire vows are solemnized, Edward will drain her blood and transform her into a night-wandering predator? Or will Bella choose Jake, and raise a litter of dark-haired werepups? Sucked into the girl-wants-boy, girl-ought-to-get-boy paradigm, readers find themselves rooting against reason for Bella’s heart’s desire: a speedy, violent demise, followed by bliss with Edward, 4ever. Hot-blooded Bella doesn’t want to wait for the preacher; but Edward — a vampire second, a gentleman first — refuses to grant his favors until the two of them are legally wed. As he puts it, “A hundred years from now, when you’ve gained enough perspective to really appreciate the answer, I will explain it to you.” But to Bella, marriage at 18 presents a far more daunting hurdle than the kiss of death. “I tried to imagine telling my parents that I was getting married this summer,” she reflects. “It would be easier to tell them I was becoming a vampire.” For her, the waiting is the hardest part. She met Edward when they were both 17, but in “Eclipse,” more than a year later, she’s 18. Frozen at the age he was when vampiredom was thrust upon him (in the great influenza epidemic of 1918), Edward is now eternally a younger man, while Jake’s 16 and holding. “Am I the only one who has to get old?” Bella wails. “Where’s the justice? What subversive creature could dream up a universe in which vampires and werewolves put marriage ahead of carnage on their to-do lists? The answer, of course, is a writer of steamy occult romantic thrillers who happens to be a wholesome Mormon mother of three — a category of one, solely occupied by Stephenie Meyer. The author is well aware of the jarring contradiction between her real and imaginary lives. Onstepheniemeyer.com, her Web site (created to satisfy her ravening fans), she admits, “I have been asked more than once, ‘What’s a nice Mormon girl like you doing writing about vampires?’ ” Lucky for her, while her religion’s teachings may frown on caffeine and alcohol for humans, the Word of Wisdom has a flexible attitude toward human blood for monsters; and there’s no ban on big love in the mythical world. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/books/review/Schillinger7-t.html Jennifer Kendall- Children's Books Expert, about.com Seventeen –year-old Bella Swan was used to being the awkward girl who nobody noticed in Arizona, but when she moves to gloomy Forks ,Washington to live with her dad she attracts immediate attention. Bella is uncomfortable with all the attention and is miserable in her new environment until she becomes aware of the handsome and aloof Edward Cullen. Bella’s first contact with Edward occurs in Biology class when the two are assigned to be lab partners. However, Edward’s first reaction to Bella’s presence is intense dislike and repulsion, which Bella later learns is an unexpected and intense thirst for her blood. Edward is determined to conquer his desire to harm Bella and in the course of getting to know her finds himself falling in love. Bella, too, is attracted to Edward and although she senses he is dangerous, she is willing to do whatever is necessary to be with him. The two begin a relationship that is full of danger, conflicts, and warnings. Edward is worried that he will lose control and hurt Bella. Billy Black watches the budding romance and warns Bella to stay away from Edward. A rogue vampire discovers Edward's strong connection to Bella and creates the ultimate threat to their relationship. Readers are swept along in this romantic roller coaster of suspense and drama and are left at what Edward calls an "impasse". Can Bella and Edward continue their star-crossed romance? Meyers answers that question throughout the next three books in the series. http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/5youngadultbooks/fr/Twilight-Book-Review-for-Parents.htm Activities Here is a guide to teaching Twilight in the classroom! https://novelnovicetwilight.wordpress.com/scholastic-apple/twilight-lesson-unit-plans/ Other Links Author website: http://stepheniemeyer.com/ Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOC8ninpQTM